AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON

I am definitely a minority when I say this, and please, do not shoot me for it: I am sick of super hero movies.

Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The X-Men, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four… and these are just the ones that I can name off the top of my head.  Let me surmise the general gist of all these movies:

1. Origin of the hero, a defining event which leads them to become who they are:
   1. Death of a loved one (Spiderman, Superman, Batman);
   2. Defining event which requires physical metamorphosis (Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man);
   3. Being born different and having to deal with a society which rejoices and/or rejects who they are (The X-Men, Superman, Thor).
2. Villain who wants to either take over or destroy the city/country/world/worlds.
3. Hero almost finds himself/herself/themselves lost and fighting internally as to whether or not they’re worthy.
4. Hero fights villain in a battle to the death, killing and maiming anyone who is the non super villain, but somehow doesn’t actually kill the super villain. It is the rare for the super villain to killed off.
5. Hero goes back to their lair/home/school/cave and pretends like nothing dramatic ever happened, until the next movie, at which point, the previous movie’s events are life altering and have left an emotional scar.

But, with the release of The Age of Ultron, my enthusiasm for the genre was revived.  Finally, a female Avengers member who actually has super powers and can kick ass.

For those of you who are dissing me for dismissing The Black Widow, I would like to point out:

1. She is a good hand to hand combatant, but has nothing on the likes of Captain America, Thor or Iron Man, and yet, she somehow manages to kick alien butt whom these guys are struggling to fight?
2. Her weapon is a gun, a gun which needs to be loaded, where in that catsuit is she hiding the clips? OK, so the same could be said about Hawkeye.  At least he’s fighting them from afar.

So, yes, I was excited for the Marvel Universe to expand, and for an introduction of a female with powers.  Mutants are a coming people, it’s universes colliding and really morphing up the minds of anyone who wants to overthink and want to figure out what the hell is going on and where the other heroes are.

I sit in the theatre, incredibly excited over the prospect of this movie and yet, oddly expecting it to fail big time and make me feel horrid for worshipping the ground Josh Weldon writes and directs on.

The opening sequence, we pick up almost where Captain America left off, The Avengers have banded together to fight Hydra, they’re going gang busters into it.  I gloss over how they managed to call Thor to join them, as he was last seen busy fighting to keep peace amongst the 7 worlds, or whatever it was he was doing.  I even gloss over how they found The Hulk again, after he went off into hiding again, especially now that Shield no longer have their network of super agents.

But what I can’t gloss over is the bad effects of that initial fighting sequence.  They could make the alien invasion of NYC look real, and yet, they couldn’t make them fighting through the forest look real?  Come on!  Obviously they spent their budget on the pricy actors, and this sequence was last on the list of must haves.

The team’s dynamic is fun, and one of familiar comradery, you get your class Weldon sense of humour running through the movie.  Quibs and on-going jokes throughout the movie, it’s familiar territory now.  Cap’s “Language” becomes the on-going joke amongst the group, he’s showing his age.  Yes, the physically youngest member of the group is the oldest.

Sometime between the last Captain America movie and now, The Black Widow becomes the Hulk whisperer.  She calms him down the way a… well… horse whisperer would a wild stallion.  It’s weird?  And they’re now into each other?  OK, I guess?  That’s cool, he’s really the only one amongst the group that doesn’t have a love interest.  Cap is still pining for Agent Carter, and he’s old enough to be her grandfather, so when he does hook up with Carter’s grand-daughter, that won’t be weird at all.  Don’t worry, that doesn’t happen in this movie.

Jump ahead thirty minutes or so, and it turns out, the stone in Loki’s septar is a super computer with crazy artificial intelligence capacity.  So, naturally, Stark and Banner want to build a robot which will be able to protect the human species from attack.  Artificial intelligence in a robot can only be good, there is no way on earth that a robot would turn on humans, no way indeed.

So, you’re not surprise when it all goes to shit and Ultron is created.  He’s infiltrates the internet, dispersing himself and gives himself physical form as Iron Man knock offs.  This dude is badass and is going to be the death of humanity.  Having done the calculations, the only way to protect humanity is to take away anyone who does not conform to a harmonious society.  Which basically means, the majority of us.  Free will’s a bitch, especially when you’re not so into being dictated over.  And when you add to that the stone once belonged to Loki, you can assume that its sense of right and wrong skews more towards the wrong side of the fence.

With great predictability, Ultron starts to build himself an army of himself.  Yet, his army are someone not quite as superior in build as he is.  Which confuses me, you’re a robot building robots, wouldn’t you make all the robots as kickassingly kickassy as possible?  Just sayin’.

Anyway, it turns out, Jarvis who had been murdered by Ultron upon his inception, is hiding in the web himself, and they give Jarvis life in the ultimate robotic body that Ultron was building for himself.

If I’m starting to sound convoluted and confusing, it’s because this movie is 2.5 hours long, and a lot does actually happen in it.  It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s human.  It also has plenty of annoying flaws and makes you want to slap a couple of these heroes.

What I absolutely love was Ultron.  His evilness was delicious, his lines and delivery, priceless.  I liked that the conversation between the heroes was not always related to being a hero, it was about being human and showing that there was more to life than the fight.

To me, the best parts of the movie actually came from the supporting characters, they were funny, entertaining and spot on.  Fury continued to annoy me.  For some reason, he just really annoys me, he annoyed me when he appeared at the end of the first Iron Man movie a little, and with each movie, he annoys me more and more.  To me, he’s the epitome of middle management, getting in the way of people actually doing things.  Keep on reporting Fury, you keep on reporting.

This movie isn’t as much fun as the first Avengers movie, but it is by no means a dud.  There are promising new team members, should the old ones decide to retire or become too costly to employ.

I look forward to The Scarlet Witch getting her own movie.  I really do want to see what they can do for her, “She’s weird”, but by golly, can she totally kick ass.  None of the standing Avengers have anything on this girl.  Thor can just go home now.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and would happily go see it again, should someone ask.  Mainly, so I could watch it from a different perspective and perhaps see the hiding gems which Weldon tends to hide in his movies and shows.   I am definitely a fanboy here.

Rating: 8/10, so enjoyable, more enjoyable when you leave your common sense and intelligence at the door.

See it again: Yes, I have nothing better to do with my time, I am a nerd loser who is just waiting for the next X-Men movie.  Our secret.

Worth my time: Yes, only so I can appreciate Josh’s genius a bit more, and also tell everyone I saw it before them.  Suckers!

Take my mother: Hell yeah, she’d be into a perve session.  Scarlet was hot!  Mum’s an equal opportunistic perver after all.

Talking points: Heroes are so boring, I’d rather wash my hair if they asked me to party.  But the villains, I’d throw my cat out the window just to be invited to their bash.

Annoyance factor: 4/10, it’s there, but easily ignored for my own enjoyment factor.  La la la, I did not see that… la la la… that totally made sense.